


Sit Me Still

by bbyfruit



Series: a color that doesn't exist [2]
Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Coming Out, F/F, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Future Fic, M/M, Parenthood, Slow Burn, Unrequited Love, always fluff because it's me, vilde is a literal wine mom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-10-23 04:26:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10712157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bbyfruit/pseuds/bbyfruit
Summary: Just being in her presence made Vilde feel warm, made her feel things she hadn’t felt in years, made her feel things that she had forgotten. Or, at least, tried to forget.Alternately, it's a journey.





	1. "This is literally like ten years ago."

**SUNDAY, 11:12**

Vilde stood in the line and nervously shifted Tommy on her hip. The boy was being fussy, whining into her shoulder and kicking his little shoes into her side, and she sighed. She didn’t blame him for acting up. They’d been in the grocery store for far too long as she tried to do all the math in her head - what she could afford as well as all the calories. 

Ever since Erik had left her, divorced her with a heavy package of papers slid through the door of the apartment they had once shared together, taking care of Tommy had become considerably harder. Moving back to Oslo to live with her mother felt like a step back, but she knew that it was the best choice for Tommy. Tommy’s grandmother would be able to take care of him while Vilde went out and worked, which, actually, she really needed to start looking into. They shuffled up in line, slowly. 

Vilde paid absently, Tommy grabbing onto her hair as she handed the cashier carefully cut out coupons. She set Tommy down on the ground so that she could grab the bags while holding her son’s hand. It was then, with her hair tangled by tiny hands and her arms weighed down with her purchases, that she heard her name.

“Vilde?” The voice was warm and caring, a hint of a smile in the words, taking Vilde back in time enough that her breath caught in her chest. 

She slowly turned around and faced her. Eva. 

Eva hadn’t changed in the ten years since they’d met. Her hair, long and shimmering, framed the smile she was giving Vilde. Just  _ being _ in her presence made Vilde feel warm, made her feel things she hadn’t felt in years, made her feel things that she had forgotten. Or, at least, tried to forget.

“Hi! What are you doing here?” Eva asked, leaning in for a hug. Vilde curved her shoulder into Eva in the imitation of a hug, as she truly couldn’t move her arms.

“Hi!” she said, mimicking Eva’s bright tone without trying. “We moved back.”

“We?” Eva’s eyes fell on Tommy and she crouched down to be at eye level with him, her smile brightening even more. “You must be Tommy,” she said, and Vilde didn’t quite know if she was supposed to answer for him, so she just stayed silent as Eva continued. “I”ve seen you all over your mommy’s Facebook!”

Tommy stared at her, expression blank until Eva stood back up again. 

“Is Erik here?” she asked, looking around the store like she would spot him, and Vilde’s heart dropped. This was the fucking  _ worst  _ part about their relationship ending. She could handle the empty bed, the silence in the house, being a single mother, but the way people looked at her once they knew? It cut her to the bone every time. 

“No, he’s… not here,” Vilde said vaguely, and immediately cringed internally. 

Eva gave her a quizzical look and parted her lips, a little confused. “Okay, well, do you want to grab coffee and catch up? I feel like we haven’t actually talked in forever.”

In that moment, Vilde realized that she was holding Tommy’s hand too tightly and he was beginning to squirm, so she placed her hand on the top of his head and smiled at Eva.

“I would love to, but it’s almost time for his nap.”

Eva nodded her head cheerily. “I’ll send you a message, then? Maybe later this week?”

“Definitely! Bye, then,” Vilde said, and she made her escape. It was kind of shitty to use your kid as an excuse to avoid your old high school crush, but really, when she thought about it, Vilde didn’t feel all that bad. She’d thought she was over this. Surely, she’d  _ looked _ at girls since Eva, but she’d never been close to them like she had with Eva. Never felt their lips on her, their tongue filling her mouth, their eyelashes brushing against her cheek, their fingers through her hair. Vilde adjusted the bags on her arms. The straps dug into her skin, reminding her that she wasn’t kissing Eva at a party. 

She was just being nostalgic.

**MONDAY, 8:00**

The alarm blared on Vilde’s phone like a damn siren. Her head was heavy in the way it always was after she drank too much wine. She pushed her face back into the pillow, eyes scrunching shut and holding back a groan.

Sometimes she just wanted to  _ sleep _ , or go to a  _ party _ , or do literally anything without Tommy always being at the back of her mind. Having a child was truly exhausting. She often told herself that it would have been easier if Erik had stayed, but in all honesty, she knew that he wasn’t much help to begin with. 

When she finally rolled over to shut up her alarm, she squinted at the notifications on her phone. Shit. Eva must have told people that she was back in town, judging from the way her screen was crowded with messages from old friends that still lived in the city, all sent last night. 

Isak had texted, asking about setting up a playdate, and Magnus had sent a message with quite a lot of exclamation marks. She glanced at names - Chris Berg, some of the girls from Pepsi Max, and even Eskild had sent something. It wasn’t until she got to the end that she paused.

**Eva Kviig Mohn:** It was so good to see you! Are you free on Wednesday?

Vilde chewed at the inside of her cheek. She told herself that she would have to get it over with, sit down and have a conversation with Eva eventually. It was still hard. Probably, she rationalized, because she was still processing her emotions after Erik. She was projecting all of her confused feelings onto Eva, all the things she had felt back when she was still at Nissen returning only because she was here sleeping in her old room, living with her mom, rifling through her old clothes and, now, speaking to the same people she used to. Nostalgia.

She just wanted to go back to bed. Instead, she steeled herself and made plans with Isak and Eva. She’d look for a job later. Right now, she had to focus on repairing the relationships that she’d let fall by the wayside after graduation. 

**MONDAY, 14:47**

As much as the stroller had been a pain in the ass to cart around, Vilde couldn’t help but miss how easy it was to just strap Tommy in and walk at her pace. Ever since he’d started walking, each time they went somewhere, it felt like a journey. He would just have to stop and touch everything, look at everything with wonder, and while a part of Vilde took pride in how curious her son was, a larger part of her was just tired.

Tommy had become enthralled with a specific rock on their way to the park, causing them to be late to meet Isak and Even. Vilde sighed, tugging Tommy towards through the gates. She remembered the park from when she was little, her mother placing her in the swings, and she made her way to the tree in the corner of the land that Isak had mentioned. Tommy’s fingers were wrapped around two of her own while they walked for what seemed like years. She was almost surprised to look down and see his round face still unhappy and young, unaged from the time that they had left the house.

Vilde and Tommy finally made it to the tree. Seated under the shaded branches, Even waved at Vilde, and she was suddenly struck with a wave of what felt like jealousy. 

Here she was, frazzled and stressed, Tommy near tears because she wouldn’t let him put that fucking rock in his mouth, both of them a little sweaty from walking, and Isak and Even just looked… perfect. Seated on a blanket in the grass with their daughter between them. Vilde’s stomach churned when she thought that even at their best, she and Erik had never looked like that, like a real family. The three of them just belonged together in a way that was painfully sweet and painfully obvious.

“Hi, Vilde,” Isak said as she approached, peering up at her. Looking into his eyes, she suddenly remembered that last time they’d talked, which - fuck, that had not been good. Too many tears and too much wine.

She smiled as brightly as she could while pushing all thoughts of her last semester of high school out of her mind. “Hi! Tommy’s a bit cranky today, but I think they’ll still have fun.”

Even laughed a bit, holding their kid up. Vilde couldn’t remember her name, but she knew that she was too young to be a suitable playmate for Tommy. 

“Want to take Tommy and Lilli to the sandbox to play or something?” Isak suggested, and he and Even shared a look that Vilde couldn’t quite decipher before Even’s grin lit up and he scooped up both kids, bouncing and chattering with them.

Isak’s eyes followed Even, a small, soft smile dusting over his lips before he turned to Vilde.

“How are you?”

“Great!” she answered, a little too quickly. “Being back is great, it’s so much easier with my mom to help, you know? I’ll get a job soon, but right now it’s just nice to spend time with Tommy and catch up with everyone.” She was aware she was rambling, but Isak looked at her so stoic and calm that she felt like if he spoke, he’d know exactly how to break her. Exactly how to undo everything she’d so carefully constructed over the past years. 

“Vilde,” he said, and her heart stopped. She could feel her smile falter, just ever so slightly, and she could see on Isak’s face that he noticed. He asked again, slowly. “How are you, really?”

She looked down at her hands, lacing them together in her lap. “It’s hard. Without Erik, I mean. But I think we’ll be okay.” 

Her heart banged against her ribcage uncomfortably, like it didn’t quite fit. It  _ was  _ hard since Erik had left. The only problem was that it really wasn’t that much harder than it had been when they were together. And, honestly, Erik leaving had nothing to do with the way she had been feeling recently.

Isak nodded a couple of times. “Yeah,” he said. “I know what you mean. I can’t imagine doing this without Even.”

They sat in silence for a moment. She wondered how much Isak remembered of that night they last had a real conversation, Vilde’s mouth full of vomit and confessions.

“He’s so great with kids,” Vilde found herself offering, just to keep the conversation going. 

“He really is,” Isak said, turning back to her with that one expression he reserved for when he talked about Even. 

He looked at her then, the sound of both their kids laughing in the distance, and she almost felt as if he was going to say something cliche about how she deserved to be happy. She would have completely broken if he had.

Instead, he just nodded. 

**TUESDAY, 18:17**

“Eat your potatoes,” Vilde’s mother said, looking pointedly at her daughter’s plate. Vilde almost rolled her eyes before realized that she wasn’t seventeen anymore, wasn’t stuck in this home anymore, even though it had felt so this past week.

Vilde gingerly spooned some of the meal into her mouth, wiping the corners of her lips before she asked, “Mamma? Can you watch Tommy tomorrow morning?”

Her mother raised a single sharp eyebrow. “Are you looking for a job?”

Vilde pushed her food around a bit as she weighed her options. If she told her mom that she was meeting Eva, it’d most certainly lead to that certain look of disappointment that made Vilde feel sick.

So she lied, thick through mashed potatoes and something unidentifiable that seemed to weigh her down immensely.

“Yeah, I think there are some offices downtown that I might be able to find something at, so I’ll check those out.”

Her lie was met with a single nod and then a gesture towards Tommy. “Make sure he eats more peas than bread.”

Another sigh. Vilde reached across the table, avoiding eye contact.

**WEDNESDAY, 10:05**

She was early, morning light still streaming over rooftops as she stood outside of the coffee shop. Vilde clutched her purse a little nervously. Eva would be just as late as she was early, just like it’d always been, and Vilde was grateful for the time to herself. 

Entering the door to the sound of chimes, Vilde chose a spot by the window. She’d be able to see Eva coming, no matter which way she came from. It was strange, Vilde thought, that she didn’t even know what part of Oslo Eva lived in now. Years ago, she and Eva had been attached at the hip, at the  _ lips _ , and Vilde had thought that they would never grow apart. Everything had changed. The two of them had kept up on social media, on surface level happy birthday messages and heart emojis on comments, but beyond that, Vilde really didn’t know much about Eva’s life. 

She startled when Eva slid onto the couch. Eva’s body bumped into Vilde, the smell of citrus and warmth surrounding them both, and Vilde breathed deeply. 

“Vilde!” Eva crooned. “Have you ordered yet?”

“No,” Vilde said, her mouth spreading into a smile that was entirely out of her control. 

“Do you still like that vanilla shit?” Eva asked, jokingly. Vilde nodded in confirmation, still grinning stupidly, even though the truth was that she hadn’t indulged in it since high school. With Eva before her, she simply couldn’t say no. 

“Great! I’ll go get some, then.” Eva stood, walked to the counter, and Vilde truly did feel her absence. Eva always had that kind of effect of her. Eva always left her wanting more, always left her feeling never quite satisfied, lips always slightly parted and heart always beating just a little too fast. 

Eva brought her back a drink that was sweeter than she remembered. 

“So,” Eva began, “let’s talk! How are you?”

It was the same question Isak had asked her yesterday, except this time, it was asked without all the dark layers that ran under Isak’s voice. Eva was asking, not because she knew what the true answer was, but because she  _ cared _ .

Vilde, as much as she had tried, could never really lie to Eva. 

“Yeah," she said cautiously, avoiding eye contact and instead stirring her drink.  She counted the times the straw completed a circle - one, two, three. “I really am doing okay.”

“Good,” Eva said happily, her hands wrapped around her mug and ducking her chin into it a little bit.

“How about you?” Vilde asked brightly, desperate to turn the conversation around and, although she didn’t necessarily want to admit it, she was equally as desperate to learn more about how Eva was living.

“Good!” Eva said, nodding her head, “yeah, you know, I’m living with a roommate, I have a job, everything’s going really good.”

A question popped into Vilde’s head, one that she quickly tamped down, filling her mouth with the fluffy sweetness of her drink -  _ do you have a boyfriend? _ She smiled, not trusting herself to speak.

It felt scarily like it used to. Eva, sitting with her feet tucked under her on the cushions, face bright and open, looking at Vilde like they were still best friends, like no time at all had passed. The whole sensation made Vilde feel strange.

“How’s Tommy doing?” Eva said, and, yeah, that ruined the feeling, reminding Vilde of all her responsibilities.

“He’s good! We met Isak and Even and Lilli for a playdate yesterday.”

Eva’s eyes lit up and she smiled at Vilde, eyes widening. “Oh, I just love Lilli! I babysit her whenever the boys want to go out, you know, and she’s the  _ sweetest _ .”

Eva had seemed so delighted to find something that they had in common to talk about, to end the polite conversation they were having, that Vilde felt bad to admit that she didn’t even know the kid’s name until yesterday. 

“Yeah,” she said uncertainly, “I didn’t really get to see her because Even was playing with the kids the whole time while Isak and I talked.”

“Oh,” Eva gasped, “Even could totally babysit Tommy if you want to come out with us on Friday!”

“Friday?"

Eva nodded, and Vilde was extraordinarily conscious of the fact that Eva moved even closer. “Yeah, Sana, Chris, and I are all getting together to drink and stuff. It’ll be just like it used to!”

She laughed, and just like that, without considering, really, Vilde found herself agreeing with her heart bubbling in her chest. Shit.

**FRIDAY, 20:00**

Vilde stood outside of the address that Eva had sent her. She ran through her checklist in her head - her mom was distracted with one of her own parties, Tommy had been dropped off at Isak and Even’s, her phone was charged, and she was here. On time. 

Everything was taken care of - so why was she so nervous?

“Vilde!” Chris yelled, stumbling through the open doorway, and Vilde laughed. She’d missed Chris, missed her smile, missed her laugh that filled up the whole room, and Vilde felt herself smiling, the nervous energy melting away.

“Hi!”

“We’re all inside,” Chris said, stepping back, and Vilde walked through the door.

Sana was sitting on the couch, scrolling through her phone. She smiled at Vilde, comforting and truly sincere in that loyal way she always had. Vilde’s heart panged when she thought about how she had treated Sana in high school, all the ignorance that made it past her unfiltered lips, the subtle way she had excluded her. 

“Hi, Sana,” she said softly.

“When’s Vilde getting here?” Eva called, sliding around the corner from the kitchen in black tights, a bottle of wine in her left hand and her phone in her right. “Vilde! Hi, you’re here!”

Eva was already drunk, wrapping her arms around Vilde’s neck in a way that made her warm inside. 

“Have a drink,” she said, passing the bottle to Vilde in a way that was far too familiar, and Vilde took several deep sips.

It wasn’t long before they were all seated in various spots in the living room, Sana and Vilde on the couch, Chris and Eva on the floor, pop music playing from the shitty speakers on Eva’s phone. 

Vilde was feeling looser, laughing with Eva’s shoulder pushed into the side of her leg. 

“This literally like ten years ago,” Chris said as she reached over to grab another drink.

“Except Noora’s not here,” Vilde said, suddenly missing her friend. It took a beat for her to realize the silence of the room. Sana and Chris were both looking at Eva, who - shit. Eva, whose face seemed paler than it had been half a second ago, and Vilde’s mouth was dry. 

Sana cleared her throat. “Chris, how’s that project with work you mentioned?”

Chris jumped into the conversation wholeheartedly, still sliding nervous glances over to Eva, leaving Vilde curled in the corner with a pillow on her lap, confusion and drunkenness clouding her mind.

Eva stayed quiet for the rest of the night, passing the bottle back and forth with Vilde, who had migrated to the floor to make the sharing easier. Sana and Chris talked rapidly. It was different, the weight around them, and Noora’s absence seemed, to Vilde, to be more evident than ever. 

When Vilde’s phone rang, she jerked up. Eva’s head fell off her shoulder.  _ Holy fuck _ , Vilde thought, and she might have actually said it out loud, because everyone turned to her, concerned. 

Isak was calling her. It was past one in the morning, and she was supposed to pick up Tommy at midnight.

“Vilde?”

“Hi, Isak,” she said, heart beating far too fast. Her stomach turned. How could she have lost track of time to the point where she missed picking up her own son, her child, from someone else’s home? Fuck.

“Hi.” Isak sounded surprisingly awake, and, Jesus, a little pissed off.  _ Fuck _ , Vilde thought again, pressing her fingers to her head. “Are you coming to get Tommy anytime soon? It’s late. Really late, actually.”

“Yeah, I’m so sorry -” 

There was a shuffling noise on the other end, Isak annoyed as he said something sharply, and then another voice came on the line. 

“Yeah, Vilde?”

“Even?” The girls were looking at her as she spoke, circled around as she sat with her head in her hands and her phone pressed tightly to her ear.

“We can keep him here tonight,” Even offered. “All his stuff is here already and he’s napping in the guest bed.”

“No,” Vilde said desperately, “no, I’ll come get him. I’m so sorry, I completely lost track of time.”

“Yeah, no, it’s really okay, Isak’s just being an asshole.”

Sana mouthed something at her -  _ Everything okay? _

Nodding, Vilde hauled herself up from the floor, scrambling to grab her shoes from across the room. 

“I’m on my way now,” she said into the phone, and she could  _ feel _ Even hesitate over the phone.

“Are you okay to come? Like, in terms of drinking.”

Of course she’d sobered up rapidly with the fear running through her, the guilt in chest outweighing all the wine she’d had. At least, she’d thought so, until Sana grabbed her arm when she stumbled on her way out of the door.

“I’ll go with you,” she said gently, leveling Vilde with her gaze. Vilde nodded. 

Sana sat next to her on the train, letting Vilde sit in silence, churning her thoughts over and over in her mind. If she hadn’t drank so much, hadn’t let herself get wrapped up in the old feeling of Eva’s skin on hers, had paid more attention, then this wouldn’t have happened, and - 

Sana’s voice snapped her out of the spiral. 

“Hey, Vilde,” she said, and Vilde raised her head. “It’ll be okay. And, also, try not to mention Noora again, yeah?”

“Huh?”

Sana shrugged. “Ask Eva about it. But, really, Tommy’s fine, and Isak’s probably not that mad.”

Vilde put whatever mentions of Noora out of her mind and tried to focus on the other thing that Sana had told her.  _ It’ll be okay. _ She repeated it in her head until they got to Isak and Even’s place, a single light on in the kitchen, clutching her phone to her chest as Sana rang the bell.

Isak answered, sullen, nodding at Sana. Vilde found herself holding her breath until she saw Tommy, wrapped in his favorite blanket, eyes heavy with sleep as he rested his head on Even’s shoulder. 

Her arms reached out for him without her control, and Even passed him to her silently. Vilde almost cried, relief coming over her as she held her son, pressing her lips into his hair. She felt so fucking guilty. Had it really been a few days ago that she’d thought about how exhausting Tommy was, that she’d wished she could just go to a party without worrying?

Tommy slept with his arms around Vilde’s neck on the way home, and Sana stayed with her the whole time.

  
  



	2. "I missed this."

**SUNDAY, 15:05**

When Vilde was in university, she wrote poetry. She joined a club, sat perched on the edge of a folding chair in a circle, surrounded by people that were effortlessly cool, tall and skinny and fashionable, reading from worn notebooks. Privately, Vilde thought they were all a little pretentious, but that didn’t stop her from desperately trying to fit in. 

Vilde, with her pink sweaters and wide-mouthed smiles, had tried to be a poetry nerd for an entire semester. She really liked writing poetry. 

So she attended meetings. She bought her own little black notebook and scrawled words into it, pages on pages of little analogies and references that she really believed were  _ it _ . In her mind, she stumbled upon something  _ real _ , and she continued to think so until the day she shared her writing. 

That day, she had sat even further on the edge of her chair, full of shaky breaths. She found herself chewing off the red lipstick she’d worn, the same color as Noora’s mouth when she told her not to walk around like a  _ living trophy _ . When Vilde read her poem, she didn’t raise her eyes from the paper. She was met with silence.

And then a single laugh, quickly covered up by a painfully fake cough and an apology, but it was there. 

Vilde had never gone back to poetry club. 

All those feelings of inadequacy and embarrassment came rushing back to her as she sat on her old bed in her mother’s house, holding that black notebook, staring down at it in a way that was familiar beyond belief. She had just wanted to unpack one box, just one. She’d only wanted to feel accomplished, to get something done, something that said yes, I’m moving on, and yet here she was. In the same place she was ten years ago. Holding a notebook that held her essence from six years ago. Full of poems about a girl from her past who had come back into her present a week ago.

Vilde opened the book and fanned through the pages. When she caught a glimpse of some of the words in her own looped lettering -  _ Hair like autumn leaves  _ \- she slammed it shut. 

The sole existence of the notebook was, in itself, furiously, irrevocably, devastatingly embarrassing.

Her stomach flipped and she stuffed it under her mattress.  

**MONDAY, 12:08**

The simple chimes of Vilde’s phone interrupted her as she was slicing up celery for Tommy. Setting down the knife and wiping her hands on her jeans, she answered without a glance at the screen, which, she realized, was a terrible mistake, because - 

“Hi!” Eva said happily. 

“Hi!” Vilde replied after a beat too long. She really did need more warning where Eva was concerned.

“What are you doing?”

“Uh,” Vilde said, looking around wildly -  _ fuck _ , what was she doing? “Making lunch for Tommy.”

“Nice.”

Again, too late, Vilde realized that this was the part where she was supposed to say something.

Eva cleared her throat with a little cough.

“Are you… what are you doing later today?”

“Nothing,” she said, and immediately cringed, because she had responded way too fast in comparison to before.

“Okay, yeah, so Jonas is back in town for a work thing and I thought you could join us for dinner or something?” Eva asked in a rush. “It’d be me, Jonas, and Isak. And you, hopefully,” she clarified.

Vilde pressed the tip of her tongue to the back of her teeth as she tried to think of a valid excuse. There was no way in hell that she was going to spend time with Eva, Jonas, and Isak, who had been friends for years. She certainly wasn’t going to hang out with them when she was constantly reminded of the phase where she’d liked Eva, and when Isak was still probably mad at her for forgetting Tommy and he  _ knew _ things, and she didn’t even know what Jonas’s job was. Something that involved protests and music and Instagram posts that Eva always liked.

“I’ve got Tommy and my mom’s out of town,” she found herself saying. 

“Even can take her,” Eva said easily.

“He’s probably still mad about -”

“No, I already talked to him. Sorry. But he’s fine with it.”

Eva paused before she spoke again, softer. “Please, Vilde.”

And that was it. Once Eva said her name, asked her like she meant it, waited for her response - Vilde could never say no to Eva.

“Sure,” she said weakly, and Eva let out a little squeal.

“Great! So my house around 19:00, yeah? You can drop Tommy off with Even on the way and then we can chill,” Eva said. Vilde realized that she was nodding even though she knew that Eva couldn’t see her.

“Yeah, sounds good.”

“Bye! See you later.”

“Bye,” Vilde said, her voice lost in the dial tone that had replaced Eva’s voice. 

She carried the plate of celery to Tommy, absentmindedly spreading peanut butter on them. She would have to text Even, she realized, and make her apologies while confirming that he could in fact take Tommy. 

**Vilde Lien Hellerud:** Hi Even! Eva said that you could take care of Tommy tonight. If you can’t after what happened last time, I completely understand. Let me know! Thanks. 

**Even Bech Næsheim:** He’s welcome here

If you want you can just come home with Isak and you can both sleep at ours so you don’t 

have to worry.

**Vilde Lien Hellerud:** Would Isak be okay with that?

**Even Bech Næsheim:** Haha he’s fine

Vilde blinked down at her phone a few times. It was settled, then, she supposed. 

**MONDAY, 18:30**

“Tommy!” Even exclaimed as soon as he opened the door, not even looking at Vilde until after Tommy had let go of her hand and darted into the house behind Even.

He grinned at her, gesturing her in with his right hand and holding back the door with his left. 

“You can throw your stuff in the guest bedroom, just down the hall and to the left,” Even said, nodding to the bag hanging from Vilde’s shoulder. 

Vilde thanked him with a smile, her feet padding gently on the carpet as she stood in the doorway of the bedroom. It was bright and clean and empty without feeling unloved. A few worn books on the nightstand, a scratch on the wood floor, and a slightly crooked lampshade made the room into a place where Vilde felt she could sleep, comfortably, without the encroaching familiarity of her past or the coldness of the nights she spent with Erik, sleeping curled in opposite directions.

“Vilde,” Isak said, sticking his head around the doorframe, “you ready to go?”

“Yeah, of course! Thanks.” She wasn’t entirely sure what she was thanking him for, but he smiled anyways, and she thought he understood what she meant.

She followed Isak back to the kitchen and bent to see Tommy, seated on the floor watching the second hand tick through time on the clock. Vilde held her arms out to him, asking for a hug, and Tommy let himself be folded himself into her. She pressed the flat of her hand against his narrow back just to feel how his lungs filled with air as he nosed at her hair, and, yeah, it was moments like this that made her heart swell like it wanted to burst out of her chest. Moments like this, when she could run her hands over the body she built inside her own, hold him close before he grew too big for her to cradle like this, moments like this when she fell in love with being a mother. 

“Bye, Tommy,” she whispered in his ear. “I’ll be back soon, yeah?”

He nodded, already losing interest in her words, gravitating back towards the clock.

“Evi,” Isak yelled into the house as he shrugged on his jacket. “We’re leaving.”

“Yeah, hold on,” Even called back. He came around the corner with Lilli in his arms, tugging at his fingers, and pulled Isak in for a kiss by his jacket collar. 

Vilde looked down, because it was all so  _ private _ . Here she was in their house, watching them say goodbye, leaning into each other with a baby between them, and she felt as though she was intruding. She was out of place.

“Okay, bye, have fun,” Even said. Isak rolled his eyes in response.

“Yeah, we will. C’mon, Vilde.”

Vilde glanced at Tommy one last time. The boy was completely engrossed in watching the second hand tick rhythmically around the clock, and she smiled a little ruefully when she realized that he’d be entirely fine without her. 

Even lifted Lilli’s fingers in a wave they walked down the steps, heading to the tram. 

“Say bye to Aunt Vilde and Daddy,” he said.

“Jesus,” Isak groaned, “please don’t ever call me that again,” and they left to the sound of Even’s laughter. 

“Even seems to be doing well,” Vilde said once they had turned the corner.

Isak murmured in agreement, knocking the toe of his shoe against the ground. 

“So does he stay at home?” Vilde asked, trying to avoid the silence, queuing up more polite questions in her head in case Isak stuck to speaking in grunts.

“Kind of,” Isak said. Vilde waited for elaboration. “He’s in between projects right now, so he’s home all the time, but sometimes he’ll be gone for, like, weeks at a time on a film.”

“That’s tough.”

Isak shrugged. “It works,” he said simply.

They waited at the tram stop for a few minutes, and when they boarded, Vilde sat while Isak stood, scrolling on his phone with frown that was starting to give him lines. 

Vilde tried not to fill the quiet with her own thoughts, but it was hard. She found herself open her mouth at least ten times, wanting to ask Isak a question, but swallowing her words harshly when she reminded herself that he obviously didn’t want to talk to her. She was almost grateful when they reached their stop. Almost grateful, because all of a sudden her primary feeling was one of complete nervousness, for which, again, she had no explanation. 

Jonas was the one who answered the door. He immediately wrapped Isak in a hug, clapping his shoulder in greeting. Vilde hung back awkwardly. 

Isak followed Jonas, already laughing at some joke Vilde had missed, and so she walked behind both of them, stepping gently out of her shoes to the sound of music and pots banging in the kitchen. The kitchen, where Eva was. 

When the three of the joined Eva, she was pouring some sauce onto plates, brows screwed up in concentration until the moment that she looked up brightly. Her eyes found Vilde’s right away.

“Hi! Oh my God, I’m so glad you guys are here,” she said, her gaze sliding from Vilde to Isak and back to Vilde again.

Isak ducked his chin at Eva with a tolerant smile, a beer can already resting in his hands.

Eva finished preparing the plates and instructed everyone to sit down. She flapped her hands like she always did, full of energy and fire, something about every movement she made that was proof of her being completely at home in her body, and Vilde wondered when she missed that change. At some point, Eva had become even more of herself.

“Holy shit,” Eva said, giggling, “remember that time that I made you guys pasta at the cabin first year?”

“Fucking Elias, man,” Jonas groaned, and Vilde stayed silent, tipped her wine glass back a little further and let the drink flow down her throat.

“Have you even talked to him since that year?” Eva asked.

Jonas shook his head in response. “Nah, he was so shitty.”

“I know,” Eva and Isak said at the same time, Isak’s face surprised and Eva’s filled with mirth, and Vilde sunk deeper into her seat as she watched. She didn’t know why she was there. First of all, she didn’t know why Eva had invited her if she was just going to be a fourth wheel of a three person group, and secondly, she didn’t know why the fuck she’d agreed to come even though she knew it’d end up with her feeling left out and ostracized. 

“You seen Mahdi recently?” Isak asked Jonas, and  _ there _ , another conversation that Vilde couldn’t be a part of.

“Yeah, we hung out a few months ago, I think? So, not that recent, but yeah, they’re doing good.” 

Eva looked down at her plate as well, mirroring Vilde as the boys continued.

“Let them know I said hi,” Isak offered.

“Isak,” Eva said, and she looked up at him from across the table, “how’s my favorite little girl?”

Isak grinned happily. Something in Vilde twisted as she remembered how closed off Isak had been to her when she had asked about his life, and she realized that as much as Isak helped her and supported her, now and in their shared past, he’d never really like her.

“When’s she going to come visit me at work?” Eva pressed on with a grin.

“Ev wants to bring her over later this week, if it’s okay?”

“Yeah, of course,” Eva said, nodding. “We’re a little short-staffed so it’s busy but it’ll be okay.”

“Oh, are you hiring?” Isak asked. He sounded surprisingly interested, and he blushed when all heads turned to him. “Vilde’s looking for something.”

All the eyes that had been on Isak turned to Vilde, and it was her turn to feel the blood rush to her cheeks as she tried to think of something to say. It surprised her that Isak even  _ remembered  _ that she was looking for a job, much less thought of her in that moment.

“Oh my God,” Eva said delightedly, “oh my God, Vilde, you totally have to, you’d love it! You can work in the office and do filing stuff and I’ll just be down the hall teaching in the art room. Oh my God, it’s perfect.”

Jonas laughed, tossing the curls that fluffed around his face, making him look perpetually young. “Calm the fuck down, jeez.”

“I’ll bring you an application tomorrow?” Eva said, but it felt more as if she was asking Vilde for permission, with her face open wide and glowing hopeful.

Vilde heard her own voice before she realized that she was speaking. “Yeah, that sounds amazing!”

Eva’s smile grew even wider. “I can teach Tommy then, too! Does he like art?”

“Uh,” Vilde stalled, “he likes to play with paint.”

“That’s all they do at that age,” Eva said, waving her hand dismissively. “He’ll fit right in.”

“How old is he?” Jonas asked politely. The conversation was stilted, Vilde interrupting the flow, the three friends having to redirect themselves to include her.

“He’s two, right, Vilde?” Eva asked, and as much as Vilde felt out of place, she couldn’t help but feel secure when Eva looked at her in  _ that _ way, like she was the only person in the room.

“Yeah,” Vilde breathed, smiling back at Eva. She’d really missed her best friend. There’d really been nobody else that she’d found that she fit with in the way she did with Eva. If she was honest, she’d never found a group of friends that she belonged to like she did these girls, Chris and Sana and Noora and Eva, and it made her heart swirl like wine she swished in her glass to think about how she lost touch with them. 

Isak leaned back in his chair, nodding at Jonas as he asked, “We smoking?”

Jonas turned to Eva with his eyes questioning. She sighed, admitted defeat - “Just go outside, yeah?”

“Nice,” Jonas said, and he and Isak left, no longer the gangly limbs and bumping shoulders that they used to be, but tall and solid and comfortable in a very grown-up way that Vilde had never really felt. 

“Are you okay?” Eva asked quietly, suddenly trading her light smiles for a look of actual concern.

“Yeah,” Vilde said, blinking back at her. “I’m good.”

Eva seemed to weigh her options, looking at Vilde slowly before she nodded. “Okay. Well, the boys left us this mess to clean up, so do you mind helping me out?”

_ Noora would hate that _ , Vilde almost said, the words about to easily tumble off her tongue and into Eva’s lap before she swallowed them. What had Sana said? Not to mention Noora? Vilde remembered it, a little hazy through drinks and worry, and so she just grabbed plates and followed Eva into the kitchen.

“I’ll wash, you dry?” Eva asked. 

“Of course,” Vilde said with a smile. She took her place at the sink beside Eva. Vilde lost herself in the rhythm a bit, the two of them working in a silence that, for the first time since she’d come back to Oslo, Vilde felt comfortable in.

Eva nudged at her shoulder a bit. “I missed this,” she said. “Just being with you.”

Tucking her smile between her lips, Vilde continued drying, looking sideways at Eva when she said, “I missed this too.”

Eva looked at her and laughed a little bit, a private laugh just for them, and Vilde’s hands slowed. She felt suspended in time, and it could have been nine years in the past or nine years in the future, for all she knew. 

The sound of the door opening burst the bubble. Vilde turned back to the sink and Eva turned towards Jonas and Isak.

“What the fuck? There’s no way,” Isak was arguing, shaking his head as he grinned.

“No, listen! Listen, I totally did,” Jonas insisted.

“What’s going on?” Eva asked, amused.

“Jonas - no, shut up, I’m going to tell it - Jonas says that he went down a famous girl at a  _ book signing _ except he can’t remember anything except that she was famous,” Isak said. 

“I can remember other stuff, too!”

“Yeah, like what?” 

Jonas stood with his eyebrows raised and his hand out, palms facing upward, silent as he searched for an answer and Eva and Isak laughed. Vilde couldn’t help herself from smiling along with them.

“Fuck,” Isak said between laughs, “what were you on?”

“I don’t know, shit, it’s not my fault that I have fun! You guys are all like, real adults,” Jonas said defensively. 

“I’ll never grow up,” Eva teased, propping herself up on the counter. 

“Yeah, but you have a solid job. Feeding the capitalist machine. And Isak and Vilde have kids! Like, when did that happen?”

“About a year ago,” Isak said snarkily, passing Jonas another beer.

“Vilde, come sit up here with me,” Eva said. She moved over on the counter to make room, and Vilde slid up beside her. Eva placed a half-full bottle of wine between their legs and leaned forward conspiratorially. The wet glass pressed against Vilde’s thigh, held in place by Eva on the other side.

“You guys,” Eva said, surprisingly serious, “are we really at that age where all we talk about is how old we all are?”

The group fell silent.

“Well,” Vilde said, causing the other three to turn and look at her, “we are really old.”

It wasn’t funny, not at all, but Isak and Jonas were just on the edges of a high, and Eva was pressing into Vilde with her head on Vilde’s shoulder when she laughed, and Vilde almost screamed with laughter when they knocked the wine off the counter. 

Things were good in those rare moments where she felt like she belonged. There were times, times like this, when she could see possibilities of her future, glimpses of everything falling into place. She could work at the preschool with Eva, get her own apartment, raise Tommy with lots of love and old friends, and she could see it so clearly for a split second that she had to close her eyes. 

When she opened them, the moment was gone. Eva was on the floor with a towel to clean up the wine, Isak was reminding her to be careful around the glass, and Jonas was still laughing.

Vilde stepped off the counter to help.

**TUESDAY, 2:13**

“Fuck,” Isak said, trying to get the key in the lock on the front door. Vilde was impatient; she was dizzy and drunk and happy and really wanted to be in bed. 

Isak shushed her when she stumbled on the shoes beside the front door. She made her way to the bed where Tommy was already asleep, collapsing beside him, still in her clothes.

“Goodnight, Vilde,” Isak whispered from the doorway.

“Night,” Vilde said, and she was warm inside and out.

**THURSDAY, 11:06**

She had done it before, plenty times. Enough times that she shouldn’t be worried now.  _ It’s just an interview _ , Vilde reminded herself, standing in front of the building.

They’d called her back fast. Eva had told her that the person interviewing her wouldn’t say it, but they were desperate for staff, and the job was essentially hers. The interview, according to Eva, was just a formality.

Vilde followed the instructions in the most recent email she’d been sent down the hall and to the right, a door solid under a plaque that read “Dr. Hansen.”

She knocked twice, hesitantly.

“Come in,” a voice called, and Vilde entered a room that was full of oranges and yellows and reds.

“Vilde?” the woman at the desk prompted.

“Yes, hi,” Vilde said, smiling brightly. She could do this. She could turn on the charm, the energy, and she could get this job. 

“Great! Have a seat,” Dr. Hansen said as she gestured to the chair in front of her. 

Vilde clutched her purse to her chest and settled into it. The chair almost seemed to cradle her, wrapping around her and pulling her in, cushions and the smell of cinnamon.

“So, you know Eva?”

Vilde nodded. “Yes, we went to high school together,” she said, but that didn’t seem to be quite enough to describe Eva. “She’s my best friend.”

“That’s nice,” the doctor said, rifling through papers that seemed to have no relation to Vilde’s interview. “And you have a son?”

“Tommy. He’s two,” she answered automatically.

“Do I have your resume already?”

“Uh,” Vilde said, a little surprised. “Yes? I dropped it off on Tuesday.”

“Oh, yes. Right.” The woman didn’t seem confident in her answer, distracted and distant.

Vilde sat under the wall of psychology and childcare degrees and waited for another question.

“Are you comfortable with organization and answering phones and that type of thing? Any experience?”

It was on her resume, but she nodded anyways, clarifying, “I used to work as a secretary for an interior designer.”

“Why did you leave that position?”

“I got pregnant.”

“Okay,” the woman nodded, still focused on the papers.

Vilde ran her hands over her dress as she sat.

Dr. Hansen slowly raised her head to look at Vilde. “Thank you,” she said, but Vilde still didn’t get up. “We’ll be in touch within the next few days.”

“Okay,” Vilde said, finally getting the hint and standing abruptly, “okay, thank you so much!”

She stood on the other side of the closed door and just breathed. It couldn’t have gone all  _ that  _ bad, could it?

She checked her phone and felt her stomach swoop when Eva’s name lit up the lockscreen.

**Eva Kviig Mohn:** You got this, girl!!! Stop by my room when you’re done

It was easy to find the art room, and it was easier still to smile when she saw Eva surrounded by little kids in aprons to protect them from the paint that seemed to coat every surface. Vilde didn’t like to admit it, but she didn’t necessarily… like kids? She loved Tommy, fiercely, of course, with every nerve that traced through her skin, but other people’s children always seemed so different. 

“Hi!” Eva said, happy and tired, hair piled on her head in a messy bun. “Guys, everyone say hi to Vilde.”

Some kids chorused their voices together in greeting, but most just continued with whatever they were doing. 

Eva picked her way through the throng of little bodies to reach Vilde at the door.

“How’d it go?”

Vilde scrunched her nose up. “It was kind of weird? She didn’t really ask too much.”

“It’s in the bag,” Eva joked, nudging at Vilde’s shoulder. 

In that spot, just inside Eva’s door, all primary colors and natural lighting and childish voices chattering like birds, Vilde really did believe her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D   
> big shoutout to esther and jm in the discord chat for helping me with this one  
> as always, leave me comments and hit me up on tumblr if you have anything to talk about!


	3. "That shit doesn't just go away."

**FRIDAY, 23:47**

Vilde tucked her toes into the fuzzy socks on her feet. It was the kind of night that she liked best, warm and comfortable and alone in the her bed, tea on her nightstand and a shitty reality show on television. 

She was half paying attention to the sound. Words and phrases drifted in and out. Vilde was drowsy, and she drifted as well. 

_ “I asked you, and you fucking lied!” _

It was nice to have some time to herself. She reclined on her side, face pressed into the pillow as she scrolled down Instagram. Her feed was a mess of some life updates that matter and most that didn’t - her old roommate was out to dinner, Sana was at Isak and Even’s, the woman who used to be her boss got engaged, Magnus was drunk and Eva was in the background with some guy’s tongue down her throat.

Vilde liked all the posts.

**SATURDAY, 11:45**

Pulling Lilli up to his chest, Even leaned back on the bench. 

“When do you start work?” he asked Vilde politely.

She watched Tommy play with his hands before answering, equally polite, “Monday morning.”

Even nods. “That’s chill.” She shoots a look over at him. This morning was supposed to be with Isak, but he had texted her that his research grant had finally come through and he wanted to get a head start, so he sent Even instead. Vilde had never spent any time with just Even. It had always been she and one of the girls with Isak and Even, or she and Magnus with Isak and Even, and it was weird for her to sit here on a bench in the city and go shopping with him. She was curious about him. The rumors from high school had never really left her mind, and, coupled with what little she knew about him now, he was somewhat of a mystery to her.

“Isak had to go into the lab?” she said.

“Yeah,” Even said happily, running a hand over his daughter’s head, “he’s been working normal hours while he waits for this thing to work out, so now he’s going to go back to complete dedication.” 

“So you’ll take care of Lilli?” There was a measure of caution in her voice and Even immediately picked up on it, shifting his weight.

“Yes.” 

“And Isak…” Vilde lowered her voice. “Isak trusts you? With her?”

Even looked at her coolly, his face devoid of emotion and his eyes centered on her face. “You’re asking because I’m bipolar.”

Vilde coughed and pulled her line of sight away. “Um, yeah.”

“That’s fucking problematic,” Even said.

“What?”

He raised an eyebrow. “I’m not a danger to my daughter because I have a mental illness and it’s really shitty for you to say that Isak shouldn’t trust me with her because of it.” 

Vilde was taken aback, and she stuttered, backtracking desperately - “I didn’t mean it like that, I was just wondering.”

“Yeah, but it’s not the first time you’ve something ignorant that was actually pretty hurtful. Like, to me, and Sana, and Isak, and Mahdi when they came out,” Even pointed out, bouncing Lilli a bit.

“I didn’t… didn’t mean it,” Vilde said quietly. She felt a little sick, and her stomach lurched when she realized that she didn’t even remember the times Even was mentioning, and how was it that she hadn’t noticed, but Even had? “I’m sorry.”

Even stretched his arm out across the back of the bench. “It’s fine. As long as you realize you were wrong and why it was wrong. And don’t do it again.”

Vilde nodded, lost in her thoughts. 

“Vilde?” Even said. He splayed a hand across Lilli’s back. “We’re cool, yeah? I just thought you needed to know.”

“Yeah,” Vilde agreed, plastering a smile across her face, trying not to linger on the past. “Want to grab something to eat?”

“Always,” Even grinned, swinging up with Lilli on his hip and towering over Vilde with an outstretched hand.

The two of them, or three, including a sleeping Lilli, followed slowly behind Tommy on the way to the yogurt shop. Vilde reminded him repeatedly to stay close.  

With one eye on Tommy beside her leg and the other on her purse, they were standing in line when the woman behind them tapped Even on the arm.

“You have a lovely family,” she said, smiling.

“Oh, thank you,” Even said politely, “but we’re not a family. This is my friend Vilde; she’s keeping me company while my husband’s at work.”

The woman blinked. “Well, your children are both gorgeous.”

“Thank you,” Vilde said, and turned back around. It wasn’t the first time this had happened; last week she was with Isak and received a similar comment. Still, she’d never get used to it. It only reminded her that nobody had ever said that when she was part of an actual family, when Erik would take she and Tommy and they’d walk down the streets. Nobody called them lovely, she thought bitterly, because they weren’t lovely at all. She and Erik had always fought in harsh whispers. Tommy had always been in a stroller, covered even when it was warm and sunny. Now, Vilde couldn’t even remember what they’d argued about. She felt as if something was missing. She had been so close to having a truly lovely family, so close, and somehow, she’d fucked it up, and now she was standing with her child, back where she’d grown up, and it was anything but a lovely family.

“You okay?” Even asked. His eyes crinkled in well-worn lines as he looked at her.

“Yeah, just… thinking,” Vilde said.

“Always dangerous,” he joked.

Vilde smiled. She would get through it, she thought. She’d get through this, the mess that fucked with her head and her heart, and she’d do it while being a good mom to Tommy. She could do it on her own. 

She followed Even forward in the line.

**MONDAY, 7:49**

It was probably too early. She wasn’t supposed to be there until 8:15, but Tommy had been tired enough that he didn’t fight when she got him dressed, and the line for coffee was shorter than she expected, and so here she was, standing in front of the school for her first day of work. 

“Vilde!” Eva called from down the street. Vilde took a moment to just bask in it, the sound of Eva saying her name - it was familiar and warm and held her solid in place until Eva got closer. 

“Hi,” she said, smiling. She wrapped her left arm around Vilde’s shoulder and curled the upper half of her body into Vilde. 

When she let go, Vilde felt cold.

“Hi! How are you?” Vilde said. 

Eva pushed her hair back - it was long again, longer than it had been even in their first year. “I’m good! How about you? Excited for your first day?”

“Yeah,” Vilde grinned, “yeah, I am.”

“I’ve got good news,” Eva said, tipping her head to the door and starting to lead Vilde inside. 

“Hm?” Vilde ushered Tommy along with them. 

“They’re letting me show you around and help out with your training!”

“My training?” Vilde asked, making her way to the office behind Eva, whose voice bounced back off the walls, bright as the artwork that her students made.  

“Yeah, I did most of the office work these past few weeks after the last girl quit, so I know what I’m doing,” Eva explained. “You can drop Tommy off in the classroom and I’ll show you where everything is?” 

**WEDNESDAY, 8:15**

“Hi!” Vilde said cheerily, setting her coffee down on the counter and swallowing. “Can I help you?”

The woman on the other side of her computer blew her hair out of her face noisily. “Yeah, hi,” she said. She was bouncing a whining toddler on her hip, the kid banging a cup on her shoulder. “I’m here to let you know that Anna can’t have peanuts.”

“Okay, sure, I’ll just add a note to her file,” Vilde said, trying to sound more confident than she felt with her mouse hovering over chains of links that would lead her to the girl’s information. “Peanut allergies can be so dangerous, so thanks for letting us know,” she carried on conversationally. “I would be so terrified if my Tommy was allergic.” 

“Oh? You have a son?” The woman looked pointedly at Vilde’s hand resting on the flat surface between them, free of any wedding rings, and Vilde was all too aware of the absence. Her throat tightened. She couldn’t move her hand now without being completely obvious, could she? It was just a fleeting glance, but she thought she could feel the burn of the eyes on her ring finger, harsh and judgmental, and all she wanted to do was hide. 

Instead, she just smiled. “Yep! Anna’s all good to go. Have a nice day!”

Anna’s cries carried on all the way down the hallway. Vilde took her left hand in her right, rubbing the skin hard enough that she could feel it ripple over the bones, and she breathed through her nose. Slow - in and out. In. Out.

**THURSDAY, 12:34**  

Vilde was cracking her neck against the back of her chair when Eva came around the corner, grinning mischievously, her eyes wide in a look that was way too familiar.

“Hey,” she said by way of introduction, “wanna get out of here?”

“It’s… the middle of the day?” Vilde said, raising her voice in a question.

“Vilde. Come on,” Eva argued, and yeah, okay, maybe Vilde would hear her out if she just said Vilde’s name like that one more time. “It’s your lunch break! We can go get ice cream.” 

Vilde played it up for the attention Eva was giving her. She scrunched up her nose and leaned to the side, letting out a little uncertain noise before Eva broke in again.

“My treat,” she said.

“Yeah,” Vilde grinned up at her. Why the hell not? It was her lunch break after all, and Tommy was in his little music class, and it was  _ Eva _ . It was Eva, so Vilde stood up and grabbed her phone and followed her down the street to the little ice cream shop.

Eva ordered two scoops in a waffle cone, piling caramel on vanilla, and she frowned a bit when Vilde asked for a small bowl of strawberry. “No,” she said, half to Vilde and half to their server, “no, you have to go all out! I’m paying, remember?”

Vilde blushed.

“Two scoops of strawberry in one of the chocolate dipped cones,” Eva told the girl behind the counter. “Is that okay?” she asked Vilde in a lower tone.

Vilde nodded in response, her smile bunching up in the corners of her cheeks, and Eva smiled back.

They ate their ice cream on the bench outside. Eva swung her legs in a habit that she’d never really outgrown, always in motion.

“Thanks for coming with me,” Eva said. “I just needed to get out of that school for a minute, fuck, like, I love the kids, but they’re so much work.”

Vilde pressed a napkin to her smile. “I know what you mean.”

“Tommy’s great though,” Eva said hastily, and Vilde smiled again, nodding in agreement. “Their voices are just so  _ high _ , you know? It hurts my head.”

“Yeah,” Vilde laughed, “it’s like it just burrows into your brain.”

The two of them lapsed into silence. Vilde pressed her tongue to the coolness of the ice cream while Eva crunched into the cone beside her. 

“How are you and Tommy doing though, really?” Eva asked after she watched Vilde nibble at the edge of the chocolate. “You’re okay without… Erik?”

And Vilde sucked in a breath, because her teeth were sore from the ice cream and Eva never shied away from the hard questions, and this was something that  _ hurt  _ her, so she tried to sit back and be honest.

“It’s kind of messed me up, just because I miss him. Not because he was any good for me, or good for Tommy, but just because I miss having _someone_.” She winced a little. “Sorry. I don’t know if that makes sense.”  

Eva stared down at the napkins she was shredding in her hands. “It makes sense,” she said. “When Noora and I - when we - I guess, when we broke up, I just couldn’t stand to be alone more than anything. I ended up staying with Sana for a while.” 

Vilde blinked. She couldn’t even think, just running Eva’s words over in her head. Did she say what Vilde thought she did?

“You and Noora?” she found herself asking.

“Yeah,” Eva said, like she wasn’t dropping a fucking _bombshell_ onto Vilde, “I couldn’t handle living in an apartment where half the stuff was gone and she just wasn’t there.” She paused, allowed Vilde to breathe and Vilde thought that all the carbon dioxide from her mouth was melting through her strawberry ice cream, and Eva turned her body to the side to look at her - “Is that why you came back?” 

“What?” 

“You came back. Why didn’t you stay in your house?”

Vilde stared at her with ice cream running down her hands. She felt like her mind was struggling to catch up, like trying to jog through water, weighed down and heavy. Her tongue was a hundred pounds coated with strawberry. 

“Same reason, I guess,” she said slowly. “And I just really needed to be home.”

Eva nodded, leaning back on both hands and looking at the sky above them. “How long were you and Erik together?”

“Six years. Married for four.”

“Yeah. Noora and I were together for five.” 

Vilde was just so  _ fucking _ confused. She tried to ask tactfully - like she already knew, like this wasn’t news to her, but instead it came out messy and immature. 

“ _ Together _ -together?” she asked, and yeah, fuck, she had to work to keep the wince off her face after that.

“You didn’t know this?” Eva said, looking at her, surprised. “Fuck, I thought you did. But yeah, we got together about a year after I officially came out, and then we dated for, yeah, like five years, and then it ended two years ago.”

And she felt dumb as hell, everything a mess of unanswered questions, a tangle where she didn’t even know where to begin. “Uh. Came out?”

Eva peered at her like this was obvious, and Vilde wanted to scream. “As bi?” she said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Vilde said, and the reply was too immediate and too high-pitched, but it was okay because Eva was laughing and Vilde was forgetting all the questions intertwined in her head.

“I really thought you knew!” she giggled. “especially after being my hook-up at parties for like two years.”

What the fuck? What the  _ fuck _ . Vilde was fucked. She’d spent so much time telling herself that Eva was straight, Eva didn’t feel that way about her, she didn’t feel that was about Eva, and they were both girls and just made out with each other, but if Eva wasn’t straight, then what did that make her? What did all those kisses  _ mean _ ? Also, and it was less prominent in her mind, but Noora?

Vilde laughed with Eva and ended up throwing away the rest of her ice cream. Her stomach was churning as much as her mind. 

She ended up at home in a daze, wandering around her room barefoot and shirtless with both arms wrapped around the baby weight still slung across her middle, thinking and thinking and thinking.

Of _course_ it was Noora. Of course. Model pretty and fashionable, red lips and potatoes, voice slow and light and lilting, William’s choice and Eva’s choice - of course. Fuck, how could she be so fucking stupid? She was going back to everything, ever since the first time she met Eva, all the parties and lunches and pregames and saying goodbye and meeting in the grocery store and _fuck_.   

Overthinking, Vilde considered, standing in the middle of her bedroom, would certainly be the death of her.

**FRIDAY, 17:01**

Eva looked paler than usual, and Vilde was half wondering if she’d caught whatever Lilli had when Eva opened her mouth. 

“Are we okay?” she asked, pretty lips standing out against her skin. “Or, are  _ you _ okay? With me being bi and everything, because, Vilde, if you’re biphobic, then I swear to God -”

“No!” Vilde cried, “no, no, no, I’m fine.”

Eva still looked skeptical. 

“It’s fine. I’m not biphobic,” Vilde said, smiling to reassure her, even though Even’s voice was in her head, reminding her of all the mistakes she’d made. _That’s fucking problematic._  

“Okay,” Eva said. She fell into step beside Vilde as they left the school. “Your mom picked Tommy up?”

Vilde nodded. “Yeah, she just got back in town from some business trip.”

“Come over for dinner? My roommates are out and I hate eating alone,” Eva said with a soft smile, and Vilde gave her a smile back.

“Sure.”

**Vilde:** Hi Mama, I’m eating dinner with a friend tonight, can you keep watching Tommy? 

 **Mama:** For how long 

**Vilde:** Until I get home?

Probably around 22

**Mama:** What friend

**Vilde:** Eva

**Mama:** Ok

**Vilde:** Thanks! Love you and Tommy 

Vilde frowned down at her phone outside of Eva’s apartment. She had been texting the whole time, and she wasn’t enjoying how she felt like she was asking for her mom’s permission. Even when she was younger, her mom didn’t really give a shit what she did, and she didn’t understand why she was acting like she cared now. At least she was watching Tommy. Vilde set an alarm for 21:15.

Eva unlocked the door, chattering about some salad she wanted to make, and Vilde followed her inside. The apartment was messier than the last time she had come over in small ways - a light jacket thrown haphazardly over a chair, shoes with socks balled up inside them, notebooks and a few tea mugs strewn across the coffee table.

“Wine?” Eva asked, opening the fridge.

“Please.”

Eva grinned at her response and poured them matching glasses. 

“I’m not hungry yet; are you?” she prompted.

Vilde shook her head, taking a sip, pressing her tongue against the roof of her mouth to savor the taste before she swallowed.

“In the mood for shitty reality TV?” Eva looked at her, smiling, already knowing Vilde’s answer. 

They ended up flipping back and forth between some competition show full of drama and a trashy entertainment news station because they couldn’t decide and spent a good hour finishing the bottle of wine. 

Vilde was warm from the tips of her toes to the hairs on her scalp in the best way. It was partly the wine, partly the heat from the popcorn Eva had made (so much for salad), but most of it was from the laughter that kept swelling in her lungs and bubbling from her mouth as Eva bumped into her, skin soft and supple.

“There’s more wine in the fridge,” Eva called from the couch as Vilde stood up to go to the bathroom, “grab it on your way back.”

Tipsy, Vilde made it to the toilet, and when she was done, found herself staring in the mirror as the water ran over her hands, turning them red. Her cheeks, too round, were rosy red and her eyes bluer than normal, she thought. It had the effect of her seeming clownish and she frowned at her reflection. She pulled back and looked at herself from the side, craning her neck to get the right angle. She looked… okay. Mediocre. Like a mom in her late twenties. Which, admittedly, was what she was, but she didn’t have to like it. She swung into the kitchen and wrapped her hands around the neck of another bottle. 

Eva looked up from her phone when Vilde walked in. “We may have to wait on the wine,” she said apologetically. “Isak just called while you were in the bathroom. Lilli’s sick, you know, and Even’s working and he’s flipping shit right now and doesn’t want to leave her, so he asked me to pick up some baby thing at the convenience store but I don’t know what the fuck he means.”

Vilde blinked. “Baby thing?”

“Yeah, like, to help her? Apparently she has a cold,” Eva said, waving her hand in the air. “He sent a picture.” 

Eva handed Vilde her phone and Vilde pretended to ignore the text that came in from an unknown number - calling Eva baby and asking what she was up to tonight.  

“Oh! Yeah, I used that on Tommy before. You have to suck out all the gross stuff from their nose,” Vilde explained, handing the phone back.

“Fuck. Kids are disgusting.” Eva stared down at her phone. “Okay. Are you keen on tipsy shopping for a snot sucker with me?” 

“A snot sucker?” Vilde laughed, noticing that Eva wasn’t typing any replies, and Eva grabbed her arm to pull her towards where their shoes were. 

**FRIDAY, 19:54**

They were both a little too loud in the store, making their way through brightly lit aisles clutching onto each other’s arms. 

“Success!” Eva said, pointing to the damn  _ snot sucker _ on the shelf, and Vilde grabbed it with both hands, ready to leave the watchful eye of the store employee. 

“Perfect,” she said to Eva, smiling far too close to her. Eva’s arm brushed against her hip.

“Oh,” Eva breathed as she turned away and Vilde’s heart dropped, “we should grab something for Isak. He likes sour candy when he’s sad.” 

Vilde followed her weaving through products until she scooped up a couple bags of candy, the kind coated with sour dust that rubbed your tongue raw.  

“Good to go?” Eva asked. Vilde nodded, dropping the snot sucker onto the counter on top of the candy. The cashier, a sullen teenage girl, gave the two of them a strange look, and Eva leaned across the counter sloppily. 

“Hi,” she said, “how much do I owe you?”

Vilde stood back and pretended, yet again, that she didn’t notice the flirtatious tone, even though by now her ears were rushing and Eva was touching her elbow to guide her out of the store and back onto the street, around one corner and another until they were in front of Isak’s door and he was opening it bleary eyed and cranky.

“Thank fuck,” he said, stepping back and waving to invite them in.

“Hello,” Eva said, exaggerated, “be more sincere, maybe.”

Isak squinted his eyes at the two of them, and Vilde giggled, because he looked like such a  _ dad _ when he asked, “Are you guys drunk?”

Eva pouted. “It’s Friday night and we’re lonely. Plus, I brought you your candy.”

And - Vilde paused. Was she lonely? She took a second to think about it, Eva still in constant contact with her, and no, she wasn’t lonely at all. Never when she was with Eva. The thought brought her a certain comfort, but it was bittersweet, because it meant that Eva was lonely around Vilde. 

“My candy?” Isak asked incredulously. Fuck, Vilde thought, why couldn’t he just thank them and be done with it so they could go back to Eva’s? 

“Yeah, your sad sour candy,” Eva clarified, shaking the bag at him.

“I’m not sad, though,” he said. 

“Isak. You’re my best friend and I’ve known you since middle school. Your husband is in England, your baby is sick, you’re sitting in sweatpants on a Friday night, so, you’re sad, and Vilde and I are going to stay with you and cheer you up.”

Vilde’s mood dropped even further, because they were staying and Isak was not fun. 

“Whatever,” he said snarkily, but Eva grinned wide at Vilde when he snatched the bag of candy from her and retreated back to the living room, Eva behind him and Vilde behind her. 

“Aw,” Eva cooed, flopping on the couch, “are you watching Even’s movies?” 

“No, it was just on,” he said. “Vilde, have you used one of these things before?”

“A snot sucker!” Eva called.

“Yeah,” Vilde said with a couple nods and a smile thrown in for good measure.

Isak look relieved. “Can you, like, check and make sure I’m doing it right?”

“Sure,” she agreed. She couldn’t help but glow a little at the fact that Isak was asking her for what technically constituted as parenting advice, at least in her mind. 

He tipped his head and led her into Lilli’s room. Vilde had to take a breath in awe as she looked around. The walls were painted with dreamy, pastel designs, animals and flowers and buildings that flowed into each other with blended colors. The whole thing made her feel like she was walking inside cotton candy. Pictures of Lilli were pinned up above the changing table - her playing, eating, sleeping, in Isak’s arms, on Even’s shoulders, sandwiched between the two of them in bed, smiling and crying and looking confused. The room radiated with love.

She looked over at Isak, bent over Lilli’s crib, and he looked back at her. 

“Even painted it,” he said with a little twist of his head, smiling as his hair bounced. “Is this right?”

Vilde walked over and looked at Lilli, small and sniffly in the crib, her little brows knit together. “Yeah, that’s good.” She watched Isak’s concentration as he worked. When he was done, Lilli breathing a little easier, she stepped back, ready to leave. 

“Wait,” Isak said with a hand on her arm. 

“Hm?”

“I wanted to ask you… like, do you remember that party in third year?”

Vilde’s heart seemed to rise up into her throat, echoing into her ears. She played dumb.

“Third year?” she said, smiling as brightly as she could.

Isak lifted an eyebrow. “Yeah,” he said, cautiously, and  _ shit _ , he could see through her. “I was just thinking about some of the stuff you told me that night. Did you ever deal with it or anything?”

“There’s nothing to deal with, Isak,” Vilde said, and her voice came out harsher than intended, but she still smiled. Isak’s face tightened across from her. 

“Vilde. I don’t really like you, but you’re one of Eva’s best friends, so I’m worried about you. That’s not fucking healthy, like, at all. I should know.” 

“There’s nothing to deal with,” she repeated. It sounded defensive even to her own ears.

Isak shook his head, rolling his eyes as he let out a stiff breath through his nose. “You know that’s not true. That shit just doesn’t go away.”

She found herself wrapping her arms back around her stomach, nails digging into her sides, remembering tears on her face and vomit in her mouth and her heart on the floor between she and Isak, standing on the ground outside of some random house, and - shit. She thought this was done with.

“Vilde,” Isak said again, slow and calm, with his eyes heavy on her like fucking weights or something. 

She opened her mouth to say something, anything, words that she couldn’t quite distinguish throbbing from her chest to her mouth, and Isak was _looking_ at her, but then -   

“Isak!” Eva called, pushing against the doorframe on the balls of her feet, tights slipping on the hardwood floors. “How do I work the TV? This movie is way too fucking depressing.”

Vilde tightened her arms even more. She took a deep breath, all the things she was about to say suffocated, and she smiled at Eva. It was weak and she knew it. But Eva was looking past her to Isak, who was standing half shrouded in the darkness of the nursery, and he didn’t say anything, but shot Vilde a loaded look when he brushed past her. 

_ This conversation isn’t over _ .

She felt queasy and left Isak’s house with a kiss from Eva sticky on her left cheek.


	4. "Heterosexual bullshit?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for my soulmate, as always :-)

**SATURDAY, 10:10**

She needed her own place. Somewhere she could stack plates in her own cabinets, where her bedroom didn’t feel like she was still seventeen, somewhere her mother was not.

Vilde pulled her clothes from last night off of the floor and tossed them into the laundry basket, heading towards the washer with it resting on her hip. Tommy was on her bedroom floor with some soft blocks. He was tracing his fingers over the edges and angles, his little eyes locked on them intently, and Vilde calmed herself by watching him. 

The door was propped open and Tommy was effectively engrossed. She felt comfortable enough leaving him there while she went to the laundry room.

“Mamma,” she said, poking her head into her mother’s bedroom. “I’m going to start looking for an apartment for Tommy and I.”

Her mother was curled around herself in bed, the air heavy and dark around her. 

“Why?” she asked without turning to see Vilde. “There’s no logic in buying an apartment if you’re getting back with Erik. And you’ve got a perfectly fine house right here. I’m paying for everything.”

Vilde shuffled her eyebrows together. She chose to ignore the comment about Erik, because her mother still believed that they were simply on a break. “Yeah, but… I’m working now. And Tommy and I need our own space.”

Her mother twitched her shoulders in what was almost a shrug. “Fine.”

“We won’t go far,” Vilde said, a little desperate. “Close enough that I can stop by every day.”

The promises were just met by her mother shifting under the covers.

**SUNDAY, 18:32**

There were days when Vilde didn’t know who she was anymore. It was an all too familiar feeling, one that snaked in the back of her mind and reared its head when she looked in the mirror. 

She stared at herself, bare toes curling on the bathroom floor. Her hair was wet and stringy and she honestly wasn’t sure if those were dark circles or leftover mascara under her eyes. It used to be, when she felt like this, she could look at her face and say, “I am a student. A wife, a daughter, a mother, a friend.” And none of the words would fit, but it was enough that she could hold up her head and walk out. She couldn’t say any of it. She wasn’t a wife anymore. She was a mother, sure, but half the time she felt like a poor excuse for one. She was still a daughter, but she was about to leave her mother behind again, and what kind of daughter did that? And she hadn’t been a friend, not for a long time.

Vaguely, Vilde wondered if this was what a midlife crisis felt like. That would mean that she’d die when she was fifty, though, which would be kind of young, but not really that bad.

She pulled open the bathroom drawer and rifled through her makeup. She hadn’t worn it in years, but it had to be there somewhere, because Vilde wasn’t ever the type to throw things out. It ended up being at the bottom of her makeup bag. She applied it slowly, making sure that the edges weren’t shaky, and then breathed out at her reflection.

It was awful. The red lipstick made her look sickly pale, her eyes watery, like she was a fraud, trying to be something she wasn’t. The whole thing was a bad idea. Vilde stuck her face under the faucet, wetting her lips before scrubbing at them vigorously with the backs of her hands.

When the lipstick came off, it left stains on her skin.

**MONDAY, 12:07**

Vilde shuffled her chair over to the computer and found herself looking around surreptitiously, even though she wasn’t doing anything  _ wrong _ . At least not technically. She’d completed all her work for the moment, all the little forms and organization, and she had a little bit of free time, so she was fine. Technically. Morally, however, she felt a little queasy. 

She took a shaky breath and opened a new tab. Hovering over the x in the corner, she almost closed it, but then dove in headfirst and typed his name into the search bar, pressed enter and waited for it to load with her heart in throat even though she knew what was going to come up and it was right there, his Facebook, and she clicked on it without giving herself time to hesitate and --

It was his picture at the top of the page. Except it wasn’t just him. Vilde leaned in to see, because something completely illogical told her that it’d be taking things too far if she just clicked on the picture of her ex-husband and the woman he had his arm around. It made her heart pound and her breath catch and her eyes blur with what seemed to be  _ tears _ , which wasn’t okay because she hated him, she hated Erik and the woman he didn’t have the guts to tag and she hated herself for still being this invested in his life, hated herself for tearing up over his fucking status updates and for checking his Facebook like it was actually important and her insides were boiling, hot and thick and disgusting and she closed out of the window with her hands slamming on the mouse.

“Jesus,” Eva said from the other side of the room as she walked towards Vilde’s desk. “Did the mouse do something to piss you off, or…?”

She knew what Eva would say if she told her what she was doing. Eva’d spout something about how unhealthy her behavior was and then suggest burning Erik’s things, or throwing darts at his picture, or hooking up with some guy in a bar to get over him. That was how Eva coped with breakups. Vilde remembered it from high school, from when Jonas broke up with her and she used his lighter to set fire to a song he’d wrote her, from when William was being an asshole and she made Noora print off pictures of him and tear them up. Vilde wondered if she’d gone through that same process when she broke up with Noora -- Were Noora’s things still sitting around Eva’s apartment? Were there holes in her bedroom wall where she pushed thumbtacks through Noora’s head? 

“No,” Vilde replied, shoving a smile on her face and blinking away the fog in her eyes. “Sorry, it was just being slow and I got frustrated.”

Eva leaned over the counter in what had somehow become their usual spots when neither of them were busy. “Need me to take a look at it?” Eva said. Her mouth twitched down in the corner and Vilde vehemently shook her head.

“It’s fine.”

“Oh,” Eva exclaimed, snapping her fingers like she was in the midst of a revelation, “you know who’s really good with computers and all? Jonas. He’s in town, still, you know. I think he’s staying at Isak’s. I could call him to come look at your computer, if you want.”

“Really, Eva, it’s fine,” Vilde said. Her chest felt uncomfortably tight.

Shrugging, Eva leaned away. “Suit yourself.”

She was leaving and Vilde desperately wanted her to stay, wanted Eva to distract her from thinking about Erik and the girl who looked so terribly comfortably tucked under his arm,  _ needed _ Eva to keep her mind focused, so she said, “Wait.”

Eva looked at her expectantly and Vilde realized that she had literally nothing to follow that up with, but she kept talking anyways.

“Do you want to go out for dinner with me on Friday night? I can get someone to watch Tommy and we can go to that place with the good Chinese food, the one we used to go to all the time, if it’s still open. Do you know if it’s still open? I haven’t been since I got back, you know, since I’ve been so busy.” Vilde knew she was rambling, but she couldn’t very well stop at this point, desperately trying to fill the silence and answer all the questions in Eva’s face. “But, um, it’d be good for me to get out of the house, yeah? Not that I’m spending too much time at home or anything, but it’s just kind of tiring to be there all the time.” She managed to stop herself before she said anything bad, things on the tip of her tongue that started with  _ you’re my only friend here  _ and ended with  _ I don’t want to be alone with my thoughts anymore _ . 

Eva just let out a lighthearted laugh and nodded. “Yeah,” she said, “I don’t have any plans for Friday.”

“Okay.” Vilde’s voice was shaky, but at least she restrained herself to only one word. 

“Tommy really likes the feeling of paint, you know,” Eva threw over her shoulder as she walked back to the art room. “I think it could be really good for him.”

Vilde watched her walk away, watched her vanish behind a brightly colored door, and had to stop herself from landing on her desk with a groan. Her life felt like it was too far out of her control, like everyone around her was progressing and moving forward and she was stuck here with a perfectly organized desk and her mother sleeping in bed in her childhood home and her ex-husband’s face still in the history of her computer and she could do nothing but watch everything pass her by.

**WEDNESDAY, 8:37**

“Jonas!”

Eva nearly flew past Vilde’s desk to reach Jonas, who walked in with a squirming Lilli nestled into the crook of his arm, grinning as he saw Eva barreling towards them.

Vilde made herself as busy as she could.

“I’m bringing in your favorite student,” Jonas said, gesturing to Lilli with a nod of his head and a bounce of his curls.

“Yeah, I can see that. Oh, my God, though, I wasn’t expecting to see you this morning!” Eva had one hand on Lilli’s shoulder and the other hand adjusting the collar on Jonas’s shirt.

He shrugged her off in a practiced motion. “Isak was late, so Uncle Jonas to the rescue.” The two of them started walking towards Vilde’s desk and Eva laughed, bright and easy.

“Uncle Jonas is cute,” she said. “Vilde! Look, Jonas is here.”

That was what Vilde had been dreading -- having to interact with the two of them as a pair. It was reminiscent of their third year, when Jonas and Eva had tried getting back together and Vilde always,  _ always  _ felt like a third wheel, like an outsider, even with Magnus’s hand wrapped tightly in her own. She hated that feeling. Jonas and Eva, when they were together, were the kind of friends that had such an immense amount of history between them that nobody else could ever match. Eva looked at him like he was the easiest person in the world to be around. Jonas looked at her like he was finally home. And Vilde? Vilde looked at her hands pressed white-knuckled against the edge of the desk.

“Hi, Jonas,” she answered enthusiastically, smiling up at them.

He nodded, partially distracted by Lilli trying to flip over in his arms. “Hey, Vilde. How’s it going?”

“Good. You?”

“Yeah,” Jonas said, passing Lilli over into Eva’s open arms, “good. I’ll see you later, though?”

And Vilde nodded, put another smile on her face, and watched Eva walk away again. This time, Lilli was pushing her fists into Eva’s shoulder and Eva was laughing, looking at Jonas, and they vanished behind the door to Eva’s classroom. Again. Vilde was left alone in a room that echoed with their voices.

**THURSDAY, 22:13**

Apartment hunting was tiring work. Vilde was propped up on pillows in her bed, scrolling on her laptop with a wine glass on her bedside table, looking for something that was simultaneously affordable and not, like, a shithole. She felt like she’d been looking for years. Every once in a while, she’d come across something that  _ might _ just work, only to find some fatal flaw with it. The nice two-bedroom place on the second floor didn’t have a kitchen. What kind of apartment didn’t have a  _ fucking  _ kitchen? At this point, Vilde could only see a few solutions. She could stay here, with her mom, and raise Tommy in the same place she grew up in. She could find a roommate, someone to split the cost of rent, and raise Tommy with a stranger. Or she could rent that apartment and raise Tommy without a goddamn kitchen. Christ, she was getting nowhere.

Vilde downed the rest of that glass of wine and turned her laptop off, snuggled under her covers to watch some more guilty pleasure television. She’d deal with it later.

**FRIDAY, 19:50**

The place she was supposed to meet Eva for dinner wasn’t too far from her mom’s house, so Vilde chose to walk, tilting her chin into the wind. Her mother had promised to watch Tommy, had seemed present and capable and Vilde was confident that she’d take care of her grandson, but she still harbored doubt in the pit of her stomach. 

Eva was sitting in a booth by the window. Vilde could see her tap her phone against the table as she frowned at the menu, obviously trying to decide what to order. It always took her a long time to decide.

“Hey,” Vilde said. She slid into the booth across from Eva.

“I think I want something with noodles,” Eva said, grinning up at her. She let Vilde look at the menu even though Vilde always ordered spring rolls and picked them apart with her fingers, and Eva didn’t blink when the waiter came to take their orders and that’s what Vilde said. It unsettled her to see how well Eva knew her.

“Want to go back to my place after this?” Eva suggested halfway through her meal while Vilde pushed the carrot slices off to the side. “There’s some shitty romcom on Netflix that I want to see and you’re the only one who knows how much I love them.” She grinned easily over the table.

Vilde couldn’t help but smile back at her. In situations like this, when Eva’s attention was on her and only on her, she felt like the two of them were the only people on Earth. Like Oslo was abandoned except for the two of them tucked into a window booth. And then it was like Oslo was abandoned except for the two of them walking through the streets, abandoned except for the two of them clambering up the stairs to Eva’s apartment and chattering through the door, abandoned except for the two of them sitting on Eva’s couch, throwing blankets over each other and reading the summary of Eva’s movie out loud, Vilde laughing.

“I believe in this heterosexual bullshit with all my heart,” Eva said dramatically, clutching at her chest and leaning back into the cushions behind her as she hit play. 

“Heterosexual bullshit?” Vilde snorted.

Eva hummed in answer. “Like, the plot is overdone and so, so, straight, but I really do love movies like this. It’d be better if it was gay. It’s still fucking great, though.”

Vilde blinked. 

“Wine,” Eva said, less of a question and more of a statement, already off the couch and heading to the kitchen. Vilde took a second to consider that she should probably avoid becoming a wine mom, but then she realized that she’s basically been a wine mom since she was, like, seventeen. The only difference was that now she was a literal mom. 

Eva landed back on the couch with a wine bottle in her hand, bouncing once before her legs tangled with Vilde’s, warm and heavy and grounding. 

“Tommy’s with Isak or with your mom?” Eva asked, because she liked to talk during movies and Vilde didn’t mind.

“My mom,” Vilde answered quietly.

And Eva shifted gently on the couch to turn towards her while an upbeat song played through a title sequence. “That’s okay?” Eva asked carefully. 

It reminded Vilde, gently, of her conversation with Even last week, the one where she had asked him if Isak trusted him with Lilli. It was different, though, when Eva said it -- her voice was soft and her eyes were open, inviting Vilde to  _ talk  _ to her, offering no judgements, but just herself, on that couch. Like Olso was abandoned except for the two of them.

“It’s okay,” Vilde said. “Tommy’s doing really well and my mom is good. They get along, you know?”

Eva smiled softly at her. “Yeah, I know.” She passed the bottle to Vilde. Vilde took a sip, letting the wine slip down her throat and settle warmly in her gut before she handed it back to Eva and watched her drink in the same way Vilde just did, her lips flushed around the mouth of the bottle.

“Is it bad that we always end up drinking?” Eva frowned down at the wine. 

“We’re responsible adults,” Vilde shrugged. “I think we’ve earned it.”

Eva sighed, pouting, “Yeah, but we talked about that. I’m just here. You’re the only responsible one. You’ve got a literal  _ child _ . An amazing kid, by the way. You should really look into that paint thing for him.”

“You’re responsible,” Vilde assured her. She reached over to grab the wine from Eva, taking a swig. “Eva, I still live with my mom. I can’t even get my own apartment. I have to rely on everyone else to take care of my kid.”

She was frustrated just thinking about it, felt like she was sliding backwards, felt hot shame mixed with wine in her stomach by admitting how fucked up she was becoming.

Eva leaned forward and took the wine back, her whole body resting up against Vilde’s side. “Everyone takes care of Tommy because he’s a bomb ass kid,” she said. “It’s not, like, a bad thing to take help from people, yeah? And you’ll find a place. I’ll help you look.”

Everything sounded so much easier when it came from Eva’s mouth. Everything was softened by wine floating off of Eva’s breath, softened by the warm blankets and Eva’s legs tangled with hers and it seemed almost  _ manageable _ . Seemed like there was nothing wrong with Vilde, with her life, with the way she was raising her son. Vilde looked at Eva and it was okay.

“Wait, oh, shit, it’s starting,” Eva said, gesturing to the movie. Vilde glanced up to see the girl on the screen, the girl that she assumed was the main character, staring at some white guy with a chiseled jaw while the music swelled around them. Vilde always ended up watching these types of films with Eva, and she liked them, she guessed. She just couldn’t really see what the point was. She was awfully detached from the plots, from the characters, from the storylines. She didn’t understand the point. But the movies were nice, and the way that Eva’s face glowed at happy endings was even nicer.

“Look, do you want popcorn?” Eva said, swinging back to her feet. “I kind of want popcorn.” 

“Sure.”

Eva offered Vilde her hand without saying anything, without asking anything, and Vilde blinked up at her, confused.

“Come with me?” Eva asked. Vilde didn’t know why she was asking or what she wanted but far be it from her to deny Eva anything, so Vilde took her hand, let Eva smile and pull her up from the couch, dropping her hand as she spun into the kitchen.

Vilde ended up standing by the fridge while Eva shuffled through her cabinets. She wasn’t quite sure of her role, but she stood there anyways, watching Eva reach her arm all the way to back and triumphantly extracted a bag of popcorn.

“Perfect,” she said, her eyes landing on Vilde. 

She tossed the bag into the microwave and hit a button. “Extra butter?”

“Whatever’s good with you,” Vilde answered. The movie was still playing in the other room and there was laughter echoing through the living room that they left behind. 

The microwave beeped, three times, and Eva moved over to where Vilde was standing, arm reaching behind her to get to the door of the fridge where, Vilde’s brain told her blankly, the butter was. Logically. But Vilde couldn’t really use logic because Eva was right up against her, lips close enough that Vilde could feel her breath ghosting over her cheek, Eva’s eyes looking down at her mouth with her eyelashes dark and thick against pink skin and her heart is missing, hollow in her chest, and she couldn’t  _ move _ .

It felt like it used to. 

It felt like Eva was about to kiss her.

All the nerves on Vilde’s body were on fire and she felt like her insides had been removed, like Eva herself had reached two hands inside of her and pulled her apart, unraveled her.

Eva leaned impossibly closer.

Her lips were right on the edge of catching Vilde’s and Vilde’s eyes drifted shut, pressed up between the cold of the fridge and the heat of Eva’s body. 

And then Eva’s phone rang.

It was a ringtone that Vilde hadn’t heard before, something with guitar and Vilde’s eyes fluttered open, seeing the way Eva’s face drew gaunt and gray and she stepped back, away from Vilde with her eyes wide and her mouth half open. She dragged her eyes away from Vilde, pulled the phone out of her pocket and answered without glancing at the screen.

Her voice was shaky and her hands were trembling when she said it.

“Noora?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> noora is the Queen of interrupting almost kisses in kitchens
> 
> also eva flirting the whole time and getting nervous im love her
> 
> oh! so if anyone figured out the real reason that erik left that vilde wont acknowledge then pls let me know :-))) it has to do w tommy and there are some hints and also im feelin diabolical

**Author's Note:**

> shoutout to the [skamily discord chat](https://monstermonstre.tumblr.com/post/159414223695/skam-discord-chat) for reading this and being complete dolls <3
> 
> please leave kudos and comments if you have any questions or theories or suggestions *side eye emoji*
> 
> and send me prompts for whatever you want, drabbles or this or headcanons, on my [tumblr](https://lesbovilde.tumblr.com) !!!! lots of love


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